Director of Commercial Strategy

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Job Details

Reporting to the National Vice President, Commercial Strategy and Business Optimization (CRLTC), the Director, Commercial Strategy & GPO Management advances CRLTC’s commercial strategy and governance of GPO and Buying Group relationships. The role focuses on portfolio discipline, deal committee leadership, analytical decision support, partnership governance, and execution across priority commercial opportunities.

This leader partners with the NVP to translate portfolio priorities, GPO objectives, and Buying Group strategy into clear governance routines, stakeholder alignment, and decision-ready recommendations. The role supports customer, segment, GPO, and Buying Group-specific commercial approaches and ensures key opportunities, renewals, partnership commitments, and market-share objectives are evaluated against enterprise strategy, pricing guardrails, profitability goals, and value objectives.

The Director partners across Sales, Pricing, Commercial Finance, SmartSource, Strategic Global Sourcing, Supply Chain/USSC, Commercial Excellence, Legal/Contracting, segment leadership, and Buying Group stakeholders to improve visibility, rigor, and alignment across CRLTC commercial priorities.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

1) Commercial strategy governance and portfolio coordination

Support and operationaliz e CRLTC’s commercial strategy by establishing and maintaining governance routines that improve visibility, prioritization, and alignment across the commercial portfolio.

Maintain a structured view of key renewals, strategic prospects, Buying Group and GPO-related priorities, and other high-impact opportunities requiring elevated commercial engagement.

Partner with segment leadership and cross-functional stakeholders to ensure opportunity priorities, risks, decisions, and next steps are visible and aligned to CRLTC portfolio objectives.

Help translate enterprise and segment priorities into repeatable governance processes, standardized materials, and clear accountability across internal teams.

2) Commercial deal governance, strategy, and value realization

Lead CRLTC commercial strategy and deal committee forums, ensuring priority opportunities are brought forward with clear context, stakeholder input, decision needs, and recommended path forward.

Maintain disciplined intake, prioritization, and review processes for renewals, acquisitions, strategic customer opportunities, Buying Group strategy decisions, and GPO-related decisions.

Develop decision-ready materials that clarify customer context, strategic objectives, pricing considerations, economics, risks, trade-offs, approval needs, and recommended actions.

Use data-driven analysis and financial insight to assess customer economics, Buying Group performance, profitability drivers, pricing scenarios, contract terms, share-of-wallet opportunities, leakage, and enterprise trade-offs.

Partner with Sales, Pricing, Finance, Buying Group leadership, and other stakeholders to shape customer-specific and group-level strategies within enterprise pricing guardrails and value objectives.

Coordinate movement from strategy through governance, approval, contracting, implementation, and post-signature tracking to ensure decisions are executed and expected value is realized.

3) GPO governance and relationship management

Support governance of CRLTC relationships by coordinating internal alignment on strategy, commitments, growth expectations, share-of-wallet objectives, and execution requirements.

Serve as a central point of coordination across internal teams to ensure GPO and Buying Group-related priorities, issues, data needs, and opportunities are surfaced, evaluated, and managed consistently.

Monitor commitments, milestones, market-share objectives, leakage-recapture priorities, and governance requirements; escalate risks or execution gaps that may affect partnership performance.

Support preparation for GPO business reviews, governance meetings, renewals, forecasting discussions, amendment planning, and strategic interactions.

Help ensure GPO partnerships are managed against enterprise objectives, customer commitments, profitability expectations, growth requirements, and long-term value.

4) Strategic Enterprise Engagement

Act as a strategic connector across Sales, Pricing, Commercial Finance, SmartSource, Strategic Global Sourcing, Supply Chain/USSC, Commercial Excellence, Legal/Contracting, segment leaders, and other enterprise stakeholders to build alignment on high-priority commercial matters.

Coordinate cross-functional input, competitive intelligence, market insight, customer feedback, and win/loss learnings to shape customer strategies, evaluate options, assess feasibility, and support timely decisions.

Develop fact-based views of customer profitability, Buying Group performance, purchasing behavior, share-of-wallet, leakage, market dynamics, and competitive position to inform enterprise priorities and leadership discussions.

Synthesize internal and external inputs into practical recommendations that strengthen CRLTC go-to-market strategy, partnership management, portfolio planning, and deal decision-making.

Prepare executive-ready summaries, recommendations, and discussion materials that elevate emerging risks, opportunities, and market dynamics for leadership consideration.

Experienc e and Educational Requirements:

Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Marketing, Healthcare Administration, or related field; advanced degree preferred.

Typically 10+ years of relevant experience in commercial strategy, deal governance, pricing/contracting, commercial finance, portfolio management, GPO management, or related roles within healthcare, pharmaceutical distribution, or a comparable B2B environment.

Experience supporting or leading commercial governance forums, strategic deal reviews, contract/renewal processes, and cross-functional decision-making.

Experience working with or supporting GPOs, Buying Groups, strategic customer partnerships, or other complex channel/customer structures is strongly preferred.

Strong understanding of commercial strategy principles, pricing frameworks, contract governance, and economic value drivers.

Strong analytical and financial acumen, with ability to evaluate deal economics, profitability, share-of-wallet, leakage, and contract performance, and communicate implications to senior leaders.

Demonstrated ability to influence and align stakeholders across a matrixed organization without direct authority.

Strong executive communication, meeting leadership, and material-development skills, including the ability to turn complex issues into concise, decision-ready recommendations.

Proven ability to manage multiple strategic priorities with strong organization, follow-through, and attention to detail

Minimum Skills, Knowledge and Ability:

• •A strong commercial strategy and governance mindset
• •High analytical horsepower and financial discipline, with the ability to convert data, assumptions, and commercial complexity into practical business recommendations
• •The ability to create structure, discipline, and visibility across complex opportunities
• •Credibility with cross-functional leaders and comfort operating in executive-facing settings
• •Sound judgment in balancing customer needs, enterprise priorities, and execution realities
• •A collaborative, highly organized approach to advancing strategic initiatives in a matrixed environment ​

What Cencora offers

We provide compensation, benefits